The present disclosure relates generally to a Design of Experiments (DOE) process, and more particularly, a system and computer implemented method of performing and/or generating a DOE. The disclosure also relates to a system (or apparatus) and a graphical user interface relating to the method and process.
United States Patent Application Publications US 2012/0079379 (now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,612,366 on Dec. 17, 2013) and US 2012/0075322 are directed to systems and methods for designing experiments and presenting results of experiments, respectively. More particularly, the publications describe a method of automatically designing a plurality of experiments for analyzing at least one data set from a process to determine a relationship of a plurality of process factors of interest to a process output of interest. To illustrate certain concepts, the publications describe a computer-implemented DOE wizard for step-by-step guidance through the design of experiments. In one respect, the present disclosure provides improvements to the general systems and methods to which these prior publications are directed, and more specifically, to computer-implemented techniques and graphical user interfaces employed in such DOE wizard applications. Accordingly, the descriptions in these publications of a DOE process and the computer-implementation thereof may serve well as background to the present disclosure. Each of the two Patent Application Publications is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and made a part of the present disclosure for purposes of describing the state of the art of DOE processes.
A common failing of DOE designed experiments stems from experiments lacking sufficient “power” to achieve the target goals. Unfortunately, this failing is only detectable after trials are run and the results are analyzed. Prior to running the experiment, conventional DOE processes rely heavily on the experience and insight of the experimenter to assess the power adequacy of proposed experiments. After a deficiency is detected post-experiment, the problem is sometime addressed by incorporating additional trials, which may allow for the DOE process to continue while retaining the previous experimental results. This usually means, however, that the project incurs a time delay and additional cost for trial runs that were not originally contemplated. More often than not, however, the addition of trial runs late in the process cannot cure the deficiency, which results in the loss of the experimental trials and results.
There remains a need to improve DOE processes by providing experimenters further information and guidance on proposed experiments. Such improvements may be aimed at minimizing cost and inefficiency, and also at enhancing the DOE process for the experimenter.